People, Places, & Things NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (116)
See it if you like great acting and great theater. I originally saw this in London and jumped at the chance to see Denise Gough again. She is amazing!
Don't see it if you don't want to see a "painful" story.
See it if you want to see a masterfully acted drama, with some laughs. about a woman struggling with drug & alcohol addiction in a rehab facility.
Don't see it if you're not comfortable with stories about drug or alcohol addiction. If you can't be in a room with strobe lights. Read more
See it if you want to see a truly spectacular performance by Denise Gough . Terrific staging and supporting cast following a drug addict
Don't see it if story of a drug addict in rehab coming to grips with herself and her family wouldn't interest you. harsh language and subject
See it if you want to see great acting in a relevant play that is expertly directed on an amazing set
Don't see it if Stories about drug addiction don't interest you
See it if you’re into destructive & constructive ways to handle life's disappointments; you liked Trainspotting, Russell Brand’s drug documentaries
Don't see it if you’ve never been the only dissenter or had to suppress feelings for your/others' benefit; your desires always match those of the group Read more
See it if You want in every sense an acting 'tour de force'. An astonishing performance by Denise Gough which brings home the awfulness of addiction.
Don't see it if You don't like 'real life' drama which goes right to the very heart of a modern issue and which has an inconclusive ending.
See it if You want to see masterful acting. The plot and visuals presented in this production are raw and emotional. Thought-provoking
Don't see it if You are triggered by drug and/or alcohol addictions. The story is very intense.
See it if You want to see an actress completely give every bit of herself onstage. Denise Gough is indescribable! She was a force! Raw, true emotion!
Don't see it if You are not a fan of loud music, strobe lights, intense storyline of drug use. This play is a gut punch with intensity on so many levels.
Critic Reviews (29)
“The first 20 minutes display the most bracing collaboration of playwright, actors, director, and designers in recent memory...The remainder of this harrowing play’s two hours lives up to this devastating beginning...MacMillan leads us on Emma’s soul-churning journey to sobriety, realized with daring imagination by Herrin and his inspired team...The clear-eyed script is refreshingly cliche-free...Gough brilliantly portrays the whirling kaleidoscope of Emma’s psyche.”
Read more
"The brilliant way in which this tale about a woman's struggles with alcoholism and addiction is told deserves all the accolades that the production has been getting...A demanding role that requires the actress playing Emma to be simultaneously funny and poignant...Gough totally delivers...I'm saving my loudest hurrahs for the totally imaginative staging by Jeremy Herrin that includes dance-club music and choreographed segments."
Read more
“‘People, Places & Things’ employs all sorts of clever visual tricks to disorient the viewer...Macmillan follows a fairly rote arc, of breakdown, recovery, relapse, and tentative recovery; you've seen countless variations on this story before…Gough is indeed extraordinary...But you also never quite escape the feeling that she and the show's creators are working overtime to mask the banality at the play's core."
Read more
"Gough is stunning in this powerful new play...For all the initial, broad black comedy and the flourishes lobbed in by director Jeremy Herrin, Gough gives a masterclass in nuance and subtlety. It is the best London stage performance since Mark Rylance’s in ‘Jerusalem’...It is a titanic performance in a slightly flawed play...Macmillan’s writing is notably thinner when it comes to the minor characters...What might have felt like a clever-clever script in other hands has been taken over by Gough."
Read more
"Macmillan’s script is almost as prickly as its sardonic lead...The metaphors are sometimes overegged, but Gough’s raw delivery ensures Macmillan’s discourse has a visceral immediacy. She makes Emma’s articulate nihilism persuasive and simultaneously obnoxiously self-indulgent. Crucially, Gough fully earns our investment in her emotional journey, through trauma, grief and the day-by-day process of healing, by never openly courting it. Fearless, unflinching, and unforgettable."
Read more
"Acting so raw, so tangible, so felt, so passionate, so wounded yet alive, so down but never out, that it thrills and astonishes...Gough steals this fierce, uncompromising play with a heart-stopping intensity...Macmillan and Herrin bring a documentary-like fly-on-the-wall integrity to the storytelling...The play, though it is undeniably harrowing and hard to watch at times, is so full of empathy and feeling it works when you embrace it...Unmissable theatre—the play of the year."
Read more
"Gough gives the greatest stage performance since Mark Rylance in 'Jerusalem'...Gruellingly honest...The arc of the character, and thus of Gough’s remarkable, truthful performance, is awe-inspiring and utterly convincing...A profoundly moving acceptance of flawed humanity. If all this sounds a little daunting, take heart: Macmillan’s lovely writing is never less than slyly humorous and Gough certainly knows how to deliver a funny line...It’s a supremely confident and well-oiled production."
Read more
"Gough acts zonked and evasive, withdrawal-jittery, insecure through the process and even more candidly so at its end, for Macmillan rightly questions the shortcomings of such a one-size-fits-all curative ideology. More cleverly still, he invokes parallels between the mindset of the addict and that of the actor...To say that the play doesn’t quite match the production is to say that it is merely very good indeed; Gough, however, is magnificent."
Read more